Yo JOE,
What up dude. Yeah, I feel ya man. I see a lot of us here can relate too. Peace to you, officers, gentlemen,and LADIES (Wyldfire). JOE, I think that what you are going through is the often ignored side effect of having stepped outside the matrix of relationships:
Ignorance is bliss...
but KNOWLEDGE is a BURDEN.
You KNOW better so you obviously feel an irritation when you don't feel like you are DOING better. You now can see the differences between the reality and the IDEAL. YOU'VE seen the realistic potential of the heights of joy that life CAN be, but all you can see right now is the mire of mediocrity that life actually is presently displaying.
kNOWING that as a man of depth and quality, that you deserve better than what you are experiencing, but STILL being presently unable to experience it can be, to say the least----disappointing.
You, being one of the more knowledgeable of the highly decorated soldiers around here, already KNOW that you can never go back to pretending you don't know the truth about man/woman relationships.
I was in a similar place/mood a long while ago when I started this thread:
http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=108236
It wrote it in outrage, and in exasperation. It was an outcry from a man who had RECENTLY fought to free himself from the Matrix, but was NOT seeing any quantifiable benefits of having that freedom.
What I have learned since then is that my honor, my integrity, my clear conscience, and my spiritual growth and prosperity are STILL worth far more to me than any validation that I could ever get from a woman, or any other human being.
Why? Because human love is SO conditional. And NONE so conditional than romantic love between a man and a woman. But having said all that, I would advise you to take comfort in the knowledge that you have continued to grow in wisdom, and this you have demonstrated to YOURSELF by all the pitfalls, traps, tripwires, and ambushes that the enemies of your soul (WOMEN that are NOT meant to be a permanent part of your life) have set before you repeatedy.
I don't have to tell YOU of how many of our comrades and brothers in arms have been mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and FINANCIALLY disfigured by tampering too long with what I call a BOOBY TRAP WOMAN.
A Booby Trap Woman is not an evil or bad woman. It's just that sometimes, she is just the WRONG woman for you. She is a woman who is a danger to your well-being, but the type of danger that she poses to you lies hidden-----until the pressures of life squeezes her, exposes her, and then causes the incompatibilities between the two of you to explode in your face.
Dude, God willing, I will be exactly 10 years older than you in July. I am in better shape than I was in when I was your age. I am more attractive to a wider range of women. I have more money. I am eligible. I have no kids (no potential baby-mama-drama), and I have more accomplishments than I did then-----as it should be. Yet, the amount of women in MY ethnic group that RECOGNIZE me as The Prize is is disappointingly small. This has been an ongoing problem for me that has unfortunately NOT abated...
So as a result, there are times when I look to my right and to my left and I see NO worthy woman beside me. And it is NOT due to lack of trying. A date is no problem. Potential one nite stands, friends with benefits, and fukk buddies are easily obtainable, all I need do is place a series of calls...but that is NOT the path that I have chosen for myself at this stage in my life.
My road is a higher one, and a HARDER one----but by MY choice. So I have no regrets. And during these dry periods (and yes, I'm in one currently...), and when I start to feel lonely, I stop and consider the fates of the majority of my friends/peers/ and even a lot of younger soldiers that I have served with in this war.
And here are the stats:
I have three friends who are in their late thirties and early forties who are now working on their THIRD marriages or divorces. With each broken union leaving behind bitter wives and bewildered children.
I have one "indecisive and passive" friend who is married to an older woman who treats him like a child and resents HIM for allowing her/MAKING her have to do it.
And I know of various younger guys who are jumping through hoops or throwing away their youth by putting committment before compatibility and MARRYING women who EVERYBODY can see is wrong for them BUT they themselves.
I don't look at these guys in ridicule, and I don't look at these guys from a "Holier than thou" vantage point either. Unfortunately, I look at them as living, breathing, cautionary tales of what CAN happen, and what IS happening out here to people STILL trapped in the Matrix of male/female relationships.
These people are still either blind to the fact that no other mere human being can make them happy, or they are choosing not to SEE that something is wrong with their current views on what constitutes a healthy relationship.
Regardless of which it is, I would encourage YOU, JOEkerr, to not lose sight of the fact that there IS a reason to be hopeful. Good relationships are out there. I've seen them. And have experienced them myself FOR A TIME. So this is NOT an unrealistic pipe dream...
You, and many of the soldiers here, already KNOW what a realistically fufilling relationship will look like once you obtain one. And probably even more important: You know, as a man of integrity, what it will take to cultivate a realistically fulfilling relationship ONCE you do obtain one.
One step forward from where you are, one minute away from where you are now, or one decision that you make from now, can make ALL the difference in your present mood.
The storms we face in life, the down times, and that little bit of fear that we face as we step from certainty into uncertainty is the price we pay for having our eyes OPENED.
It's true, my friend.
Sometimes your eyes DO "hurt because you haven't used them before."
But there are ALSO times when your eyes hurt "because you've been looking too hard and you've seen TOO MUCH."
So rest easy, soldier. For tomorrow is a new day...with new challenges...new obstacles...new opportunities...and YES...
...new VICTORIES.
And remember:
"No matter how many battles you fight, may your VICTORIES be UNLIMITED!!!!"
